Taso Lagos

Interim Director, EMIS

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Dr. Lagos is the interim director of the JSIS Executive Master of International Studies. His teaching career at the University of Washington began in 2000. His research focuses on both historical and modern currents as expressed in distinct personalities. His first monograph, American Zeus: The Life of Alexander Pantages, Theater Mogul (McFarland Press, 2018) sheds light on the extraordinary but forgotten life of a Greek immigrant who arrived in the United States in the 1880s and rose to become one of the wealthiest and most innovative movie theater owners in the country. His story mirrors the larger American story of a changing society in the midst of an immense wave of immigrants.

Charisma and Religious War in America looks at the same period, but within the growing Protestant movement represented by Aimee Semple McPherson and Robert “Fightin’ Bob” Shuler. In Cooking Greek/Becoming American (McFarland, 2021), he explored the legacy of his family’s Greek eatery in Seattle as a “third place” but also a “school” that taught us how to become citizens. My most recent book, The Age of Charisma (Ethics Press, 2023) returns to the familiar ground of charisma and its rise in the media age. His next book looks at the history of Greek restaurants in the U.S.